The community is rallying around dozens of residents who were displaced by a massive apartment fire in East Dallas.
On Tuesday afternoon, the fire ripped through the Bluffs of Lakewood Apartments near White Rock Lake.
“It was hard to watch. On one hand it was so incredible seeing something like that, but then when you are surrounded by everyone out there watching everything they have go up in smoke… it’s… it was unbearable,” resident Anthony “Quinn” Valdivia said.
Valdivia said there are residents who lived in the building for more than a decade and some lost everything.
“I was on the first floor and I didn’t get any fire damage, but the smoke damage had come in and it’s gotten into all of my belongings,” Valdivia said. “Then the water came in through the roof from putting out the fire and the last time I was there, it looked like my roof was going to cave in.”
Valdivia lost clothing, furniture and a comic book collection.
“On one hand, I’m just struggling that its actually happened, but to have a neighborhood that’s been so generous and people I don’t even know are coming up to me and bringing me towels or canned goods,” he said.
According to Valdivia, another nearby apartment set space aside where its residents could donate furniture and clothing to those who live at the Bluffs of Lakewood Apartments.
The American Red Cross is assisting the occupants of roughly 35 apartments who lost their homes.
Property managers are finding space for many of those displaced families to stay in other vacant apartments on site or in sister properties.
